


Winry's Watcher

by Leni



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-15
Updated: 2015-01-15
Packaged: 2018-03-07 16:19:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3177032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leni/pseuds/Leni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>FMA/BtVS fusion. Pinako discovers that her granddaughter is the next Slayer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winry's Watcher

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Evil_Little_Dog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evil_Little_Dog/gifts).



> Written for ELD at [Comment Fic](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/589845.html?thread=82211861#t82211861). Prompt: **Winry's the Slayer.**.

It wasn't fair. 

There were dozens of girls in the world who had been raised to see a future as the Slayer as their true calling. They would be proud to be Chosen, and they would march to their doom without the least idea that there could have been an alternative Those girls didn't have a family, or love and warmth in their lives; they had duty and nothing else. They certainly wouldn't have friends to tease and be teased by them, not when they had a whole world to protect instead.

But none of those girls were the Chosen One now.

"Oh, dearest," Pinako whispered, petting her granddaughter's long hair as the girl still looked too shocked to react to the news. "I so hoped it wouldn't be you!"

Pinako herself couldn't believe it. But Winry had just pushed Alphonse away - a playful part of the usual banter between her and the Elric brothers - and she'd sent the three-hundred-pound armor flying across the room. For a few hours before she'd received confirmation of the last Slayer's death, Pinako had prayed that this was just a manifestation of a Potential's strength.

She'd known better, deep down, but she hadn't wanted to face the reality until she felt ready to deal with it.

She was ready now.

"We'll have to move to Central," she told the girl. Resembool was too quiet a town for a Slayer's home; its only claims to an underground the half dozen Bracchen demons who passed for humans and handled the flower store and a couple restaurants, and the two half-breeds who weren't even aware of their heritage (and Pinako had promised Trisha that she wouldn't be the one to tell them). There had been a few vampires, decades ago, but a few well-placed stakes had dissuaded any more from invading their little town. "You will be okay, Winry."

The girl took a shuddering breath, but nodded. "And the shop?"

Pinako closed her eyes. A lifetime doing research in automail - a science that had lengthened many a Slayer's lifespan, and thus the Council had approved of her interest - but all her work paled in comparison to her duty as the Slayer's Watcher.

And, as Winry's grandmother, she didn't think twice of leaving all she knew behind.

"We can start again. Open a new automail shop in the city, perhaps." They'd need an occupation, to pass as just another little family who'd chosen to look for a better future in the capital. The world may not blink at the wonders of alchemy, but they had no idea that the best alchemists had but dipped a fingertip in the true well of power. What were a few transformation tricks in comparison to the potential of slipping between dimensions, or of playing with souls as one would with fuel? True magic was still beyond the collective imagination, and few had a true idea of how close to the edge of hell they all lived. "I'm sure Ed will have a few ideas."

As planned, the thought of her friend's reaction to their move made Winry chuckle a little. "He'll be a pest." Pinako smiled in relief when her granddaughter straightened and wiped her cheeks dry. "We won't even get to decide which seats to take on the train, if he gets his way," Winry said, already frowning at Ed's ways.

The boy could be paranoid, in his attempts to protect those he cared about.

Pinako wasn't looking forward to his discovery about Winry being the Chosen One - and he _would_ find out. The Slayer may be meant to keep to herself, but the Elric boys would never let Winry drift away without finding out the reason. It had only been a few months since they'd returned to Resembool, after an absence of two years, and neither of them looked as if they could stand to be separated from their loved ones for long again.

Pinako didn't know how the news would affect their quest for the Philosopher's Stone, but if rumors were true, and the unholy cadre led by Father was looking for the Stone as well in order to open another Hellmouth that would swallow Amestris this time, then Winry's and their paths would surely cross more than once.

Perhaps that had even been why....

It would make sense. Fate was a mean bitch, and the Powers that Be were happy to give into her every whim. Placing the next Slayer so close to where the next battle was sure to happen - and there was no way to drive away the so-called Father of demons than with a big and bloody battle - must have seemed too good an opportunity to miss. And what would they care about a young woman whose only wish was to become the best automail mechanic in the world, and to help her best friend with her knowledge?

Far be it for Hohenheim's boys to be granted a refuge, a place of quiet and healing among friends.

The Powers that Be had never forgiven their old man for surviving in Xerxes, and they hadn't showed any mercy in the brothers' short lives.

The bastards.

But their decision couldn't be changed now. 

Winry was the new Chosen One. The boys were heading straight into a confrontation with the deadliest enemy in the Watchers' Archive. Pinako was the only one with enough experience under her belt to make sure the three of them survived the experience (and, with some luck, Hohenheim would show up somewhere along the way, if Father was indeed involved).

"They won't take me away, will they?" Winry asked, pale at the thought.

Pinako grit her teeth, well aware of where the question was coming from. It was unorthodox, to say the least, for a girl to stay with her birth family after it'd been determined that she was a Potential. It didn't matter that the girl's grandmother was on a straight path to the highest hierarchy of the Council and both her parents had died while on a mission to learn more about the magic being developed in Ishval (for, where there was any form of alchemy, magic was sure to be present as well).

Pinako had already been furious that the Council hadn't provided enough protection for her son and daughter-in-law, but when she'd been told to place their child under someone else's care... Well. She'd shown the lot of them why Pinako Rockbell was a law unto herself.

But defying the Council's orders had meant that a team had been sent to recover the Potential and, presumably, put the rogue Watcher in her place.

Her shotgun had dissuaded them.

Twice.

Pinako had deigned to accept the Council's apologies for their 'rashness' and, as a show of her willingness to stay in good terms with them, she had treated the worst wounds caused by her good aim and replaced several of the limbs lost at her doorstep.

Fate wasn't the only one who could offer a solution after she'd screwed someone over.

Except that Pinako had had good cause for her actions in the first place.

"Of course not, child," she calmed down Winry's fear. "They won't dare."

And neither would they _want_ to, Pinako predicted. The Council had cut their losses, with the Rockbell family; their dealings with the main office had mostly been through a few letters over the past decade, whenever a Watcher or Slayer needed to have automail surgery under relative secrecy. She and Winry were _useful_ , but Pinako's action had been too seditious to be trusted and she would sure have taught her granddaughter to do as much. Once they found out about Winry, they would probably debate the situation for a few months and decide it wasn't worth to intervene. Then they'd wait for the next Slayer to be called.

They could wait forever, as far as Pinako was concerned.

"We will be fine, you'll see."

If all failed, she could call on the Elric boys for help. Alchemy may be children's play, compared to the powers against which a Slayer might have to pit herself, but _their_ alchemy was a hair's breadth away from the brightest magic Pinako had ever witnessed.

They carried Hohenheim's blood in their veins, after all. A potential all of their own.

Pinako chuckled at her own phrasing. Yes, no wonder the girl that had been chosen was the childhood friend of those boys.

Together, they had the power to live through the months ahead and defeat Father. Maybe they'd even find a way to patch the tears between the dimensions that Father's work had ripped away. Maybe no more demons would be able to come to Earth. Maybe...

Maybe Winry would be the last Slayer, and she'd live to tell her tale.

Pinako couldn't know whether that was the future Fate had in store for them, but this once she was willing to wrestle the tricky bitch into the ground and demand a happy ending for the kids under her care.

 

The End  
15/01/15


End file.
